A taxpayer who claimed id=”mce_marker”0,104 for work-related car expenses and $6,497 for other work related expenses in his 2009-10 tax return, which the Commissioner disallowed, has been partly successful before the AAT – but only to the extent of being allowed car expenses totalling $3,150 under the cents per kilometre method based on 63 cents per kilometre for the first 5,000 business kilometres travelled. In only allowing car expenses under the cents per kilometre method, the AAT found the taxpayer had not substantiated the expenses as required by s 28-100 of the ITAA 1997 in terms of maintaining a log book. In particular, he was not able to produce the log book at the hearing and, therefore, the AAT disallowed the claim for that amount as he had not “retained” the log book as required by s 28-150.
In dismissing the taxpayer’s other car and work-related expenses, the AAT found (among other things): that by his own admission, another vehicle for which car expenses were claimed was “predominantly used for family” purposes; other claimed expenditure was not related to his employments as a salesperson and/or was incurred while he was unemployed (eg phone, postage, stationary); and, claimed home office expenditure was of a private or domestic nature and that no part of the home had been exclusively set aside to carry on a business or formed the sole base for income-producing activities.
(AAT Case [2013] AATA 750, Re Schlottmann and FCT, Ref No 2012/3877 McDermott SM, 22 October 2013.)
[LTN 205, 23/10/13]